Leopardtail
Senior Member
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The stuff to do with mood hormones is largely from Psychiatry and hence a bit science-light. They measure hormone levels, assess mood then work out what correlations occur. The field of Neuro-endocrinolgy (hard science about mood hormones) is fairly new and still has some way to go.
The hormones are often weird in that too much or too little often cause versions of the same symptom but via different methods. This makes them a major pain for doctors, they have to extract every symptom form the patient and be very expert to diagnose.
My common sense view:
Serotonin is uplifting - too little produces low mood (the depression most people think of) too much produces agitation (anxious depression).
BTW the Serotonin produced in the gut is independent of that in the brain - it's why you can't eat a Serotonin tablet for depression. It does loads of stuff though, involved in the bowels, regulates the immune system, I suspect we are barely started learning about it.
The hormones are often weird in that too much or too little often cause versions of the same symptom but via different methods. This makes them a major pain for doctors, they have to extract every symptom form the patient and be very expert to diagnose.
My common sense view:
Serotonin is uplifting - too little produces low mood (the depression most people think of) too much produces agitation (anxious depression).
BTW the Serotonin produced in the gut is independent of that in the brain - it's why you can't eat a Serotonin tablet for depression. It does loads of stuff though, involved in the bowels, regulates the immune system, I suspect we are barely started learning about it.